Category: Ground Zero

Carter Deems after his battle with Joe Cutter at Day 1. Photo by Chris Wynn.

We couldn’t make it to Los Angeles for BOLA5 this weekend, but we did an interview with KOTD’s Aspect One for BattleRap.com to get his thoughts on the best performances from the night as well as to find out exactly what is going on with Carter Deems.

The newly rebranded GZ Battles launched yesterday, with an event that felt like something from the early days of KOTD. The battles were short, in a pit with the crowd surrounding the battlers, and mostly judged. Most importantly, the battlers were hungry and kept the crowd entertained throughout. Not every battle was great, but they all had great moments.

It was the first event in Gully’s hometown of Mississauga and still drew around 250 people (including Gully’s dad) despite being a streetcar, a subway, and two buses away from downtown Toronto. The venue was a club located in a strip mall, divided into a bar with tables and food on one side and a dancefloor that served as the ring on the other.

The new venue, new crowd and some bigger names on the card made for a welcome return of small-scale KOTD events to the city (or at least its suburbs).

From pretty much all accounts, the latest KOTD event in Vancouver was the best one the city’s ever seen. The battles were solid, the crowd was hype and only one person got hit with a chair.

T.O. Battle Blog wasn’t in the building, but we reached out to Pigsty, A-Class, Megadef and DDSS to get their perspectives on their own battles. We also have Sketch Menace, who co-hosted with KOTD Vancouver’s La Sparka, breaking down Lex D vs Rupert Common.

MEGADEF VS DDSS

Megadef vs DDSS. Photo by @CopaseticSoulz

This battle was for the last spot in the GZGP finals against Step Easy. DDSS had come off a few weak wins and Mega had the Fresh Coast confidence on his side after a decisive win over Cobalt45. Here’s their take on how it went down:

If you want “bars over names,” forget URL. GZ is where it’s at. No gimmicks, no drama, no BS, just four entertaining battles. Even with three battles cancelled, the night managed to be laid-back, relaxed and fun.

The crowd was a good size, especially for an event so soon after WD4, and there were a lot of new faces. The obscure references to the GZ scene were mostly lost on them, so if you’re bringing someone new, tell them to read this post and our recaps of Rounds 1, 2 and 3 before coming to the finals on Nov. 23.

Oh, and the “ladies-free-before-10:00 p.m.” plan worked like a dream.

STEP EASY VS WIZE GUY (Battle of the night)

Step took this on a 3-2 decision and moves on to the GZGP finals in November. We heard a few people loudly calling it a robbery outside the venue, though they were mostly Wize Guy’s boys and the judges who voted for him. There was so much going on in this battle it’s easy to see why opinions were so divided.

With the Ground Zero Grand Prix brackets narrowing headed into the quarter finals, last weekend’s events in Toronto and Vancouver only had one or two tournament battles going down. That meant there was room on the cards for some KOTD main-channel battles and a place to showcase some new talent.

We have the details from Toronto, and Vancouver up-and-comer Pigsty has details from his hometown event.

There was no clear Battle of the Night in Toronto, which just shows how hot the card was. People mostly went with Notez/Wize Guy, N-Pose/Yung Casper and Kinaze/Twizzie. Standout performances came from N-Pose, Notez and Bulle.